Creating a large 3D Cone shape as a shapefile for ArcGIS on-line 3D viewer

Hi ​@bhindustry,

I am attaching a workspace containing the custom transformer LaunchConeReplacer, that will create the launch cone surface for you, and output to a Shape multipatch. I have annotated all the transformers within the custom transformer for clarity, but the basic process is:

• Store original point location
• Replace with 0,0,0 point
• Calculate top radius from bottom radius and cone angle
• Create arcs on bottom radius and extract endpoints
• Create arcs on top radius
• Extend top arc with bottom arc endpoints to create polygon
• Convert polygon to face
• Merge faces into surface
• Move surface to original location

I have modified the custom transformer to be more generic and published it to FME Hub: https://hub.safe.com/publishers/safe-lab/transformers/conereplacer. It will now replace a line segment at any orientation with a 3D cone as a Surface or Solid.

Hi Dave - Thanks for this, I really appreciate your efforts, I just might need a bit more help in using it. I have tried a number of different things with one or multiple input points and I just can’t get it working.

I keep getting an ‘invalid geometry’ response when I try it out and it fails at the first Geometry filter. If for example I had the attached XLS file with three Lat Long points that I want to create cones from. How would I use it?

Are you able to create a demo workbench that uses your new Cone Replacer transformer?

Regards

Brendan

Hi Brendan,

Thank you for the feedback. I have modified the workspace to force the input Excel points to 3D and reproject to Florida State Plane meters before creating the cones. Lat/long doesn’t work well for 3D since the the XY and Z coordinates are in very different units (degrees vs feet/meters).

Please try the updated workspace.